Order IV — Hymenoptera. — Bees, Ants and Wasps
This division contains an immense number of very interesting insects which, though generally known as bees, ants, and wasps, comprise many other just as important families; some are unfortunately popularly called flies, such as saw-flies, gall-flies, and ichneumon-flies, but all true flies have only one pair of wings. Hymenoptera are, with a few exceptions, furnished with two pairs of semitransparent membranous wings, sometimes shaded with black or yellow tints, devoid of hairs or scales, but traversed by stout nervures forming irregular cells; the hind pair are the smaller, and are furnished with a row of spines along the front margin capable of hooking into the hind edge of the fore pair, thus adding to their powers of flight.
In a few anomalous groups we find the females wingless, such as Thynnidae, Mutillidae and others; in some like the fig insects Blastophaginae, the males are wingless and blind; in the ants, while the males and females are winged, the bulk of the community consists of wingless workers forming a third sex or caste.
These insects are furnished with well developed antennae; large compound eyes, in some groups composed of an immense number of facets; usually 3 simple eyes or ocelli, but these are sometimes wanting; a more or less tubular mouth adapted for sucking up food (commonly called the proboscis), though mandibles are always present. The thorax is stout and broad; the three primary portions, prothorax, mesothorax and metathorax, are distinct on the upper surface with well defined lateral or ventral plates. The legs are generally large, with spined tibiae, and slender tarsi terminating in a double claw or hook, but varying much in size and shape in the different families. The abdomen takes all kinds of remarkable forms, from the thickened sessile body of the sawfly to the slender stalked abdomen of the sand-wasp, and the female is furnished with an ovipositor, sting, or saw at the extremity.
The Hymenoptera are considered by naturalists to be one of the most highly developed or specialised orders of insects, on account of the social habits of some of the chief families, and the care they display in providing for the safety and food supplies of their larvae.
They undergo a complete metamorphosis: from the egg is hatched out a soft, generally legless larva which when full grown, if in a protected cell, is simply enveloped in a thin skin, but otherwise forms a stout silken or parchment-like cocoon; the larva usually takes a considerable time to change into the pupa; the change is not rapid as that of a butterfly.
Australia is very rich in hymenoptera; most of the typical families are well represented, and we also have a few very distinct groups peculiar to this country.
There have been many schemes of classification and sub-divisions of these insects proposed by various authors, and the present idea among specialists seems to tend to a still closer definition of the families, as exemplified in Ashmead’s recent Classification running through the pages of the Canadian Entomologist; but in a book of this kind, I can only deal with the most important divisions and refer my readers to the work of such specialists.
Westwood divided the first section, Terebranti, in which the females are provided with a more or less projecting instrument for depositing their eggs, into two sub-sections, Phytiphaga, in which the abdomen is sessile, and Entomophaga, in which the body is stalked. Some of the French entomologists had previously suggested dividing them up into five large families defined by the peculiarities of the ovipositor or borer. Kirby used the same terms as Westwood, but I have followed Sharp, who uses the names Sessiliventres instead of the first, and Petioliventres for the second, for they certainly express more clearly the form of the body of the groups under observation. The first group contains four families.
Family 1. Stem-Sawflies — Cephidae
The first group comprises what Sharp terms “Stem-Sawflies,” which are not represented in Australia. They are slender little insects with long antennae; the larvae feed in the stems of plants; one damages wheat stems in Europe, another infests willows in America, a third is recorded from Japan; but they are unknown in Australia.
Family Tenthredinidae.
1. Phylacteophaga eucalypti (Froggatt).
2. Phylacteophaga eucalypti (Froggatt), Larva.
3. Perga dorsalis (Leach).
4. Perga dorsalis (Leach), Larva.
5. Perga lewisii (Westwood).
Family 2 — Oryssidae
This family consists of the single Genus Oryssus, of which only 20 species are known. They are remarkable for the curious situation of the antennae on the under-surface of the head, the cylindrical rounded abdomen, and the exposed needle-like ovipositor. Turner has described one from Mackay, Queensland, in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society N.S.W. under the name of Oryssus queenslandicus. It is a small black insect measuring ½ an inch in length; with mottled brown wings, and typical shape of the genus.
Family 3 — Siricidae
These handsome Sawflies are common in Europe and America, the larvae living in timber; the members of the typical Genus Sirex have long cylindrical bodies rounded to the apex; the borer of the female extends beyond the tip of the abdomen. One species, Sirex australis, has been described from Australia by Kirby (List of Hymenoptera 1882). I have never heard of another specimen being found, and believe the type is unique.
Family 4. Sawflies — Tenthredinidae
These are the typical stoutly built Sawflies, with the pronotum narrow, and the thorax generally broader than the head; the abdomen sessile, and provided in the female with a beautiful saw-like instrument on the under-surface of the tip of the abdomen, with which she slits the leaves to deposit her eggs in the tissue. The larvae are caterpillar-like creatures usually furnished with three pairs of legs; they feed upon the foliage of many plants.
Our species all belong to genera peculiar to Australia: Klug described several in the Berlin Magazin in 1814; Leach figured and described others in his “Zoological Miscellanies 1817”; Westwood described and figured a number in an important paper in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 1880, others in his “Arcana Entomologica 1841”; and Kirby added to them in his List of Hymenoptera, B.M. Catalogue 1882.
The Genus Perga contains about 50 of our largest Sawflies, broad thickset insects, with reddish or light brown opaque wings, and short antennae forming an elongate club at the extremity. The larva is black or brown clothed with short scattered shining bristles, black head, three pairs of short stout legs, broad thorax, and abdomen tapering to a rounded tip. They feed gregariously upon the foliage of eucalypts, often stripping off all the leaves of the young bushes; they rest in the day time clustered together in a bunch of 50 or more round a branch, holding on with the legs; when disturbed they raise and rap the tip of the abdomen against the leaves, at the same time discharging a sticky yellow fluid from the mouth smelling strongly of eucalyptus extract. They are very subject to the attacks of dipterous and hymenopterous parasites, which these means of defence may keep away. When full grown they bury themselves in the soil, and form elongate, oval, parchment-like cocoons clustered together.
The Steel Blue Sawfly, Perga dorsalis, is slightly over 1 inch in length; is of a deep metallic blue, marked on face and thorax with bright yellow, and has stout reddish brown wings; the smaller male has the upper surface of the abdominal segments clothed with silvery pubescence. Perga kirbyi is dark reddish brown, similar in form and size to the last species; Perga lewisii, a much smaller yellowish brown insect, flattened on the dorsal surface, is common about Sydney upon the foliage of the “blood-wood” (Eucalyptus corymbosa), where she lays her eggs in the leaf in a double row, and stands over them until the tiny larvae hatch out and are able to move away; while thus occupied you can pick her up, but she will not move away, but raise her wings and fight like a hen over her chickens. Though this is our commonest species, and I have taken hundreds of females, I have never seen a male. Perga cameronii is like the last species, but larger, with more distinct markings on the back; it is found on the Blue Mountains.
In the Genus Pterygophorus about 10 species are described; they are much smaller insects, with bright metallic blue colours marked with reddish yellow; the male has the antennae produced into a comb or feathery structure, those of the female are formed of short rounded joints. The larva is a dull olive green creature covered with small warty tubercules; the head is broad, and the abdomen tapers off into a slender pointed tail; it has seven pairs of abdominal legs. It feeds upon the foliage of Leptospermum, wild dock and other plants, and when full grown bores into dead wood, pupating in a rounded oval cell.
The Ringed Sawfly, Pterygophorus cinctus, ½ an inch in length, is dark blue marked with deep reddish orange on the thorax, with a ring round the centre and tip of the abdomen of a similar colour; the wings are marked and clouded with black.
Family Tenthredinidae.
1. Pterygophorus cinctus (Klug).
2. Pterygophorus cinctus (Klug), Antenna ♀.
3. Pterygophorus cinctus (Klug), Larva.
4. Philomastix glaber (Froggatt).
5. Philomastix glaber (Froggatt), Antenna.
6. Philomastix glaber (Froggatt), Larva.
The Pale Coloured Sawfly, P. interruptus, slightly larger, has the thorax marked with orange yellow, and the abdomen deeply blotched with the same colour, forming interrupted bands on the sides; both these species are taken upon flowers in the summer months.
Philomastix glaber has very curious larvae that feed upon the wild bramble on the northern rivers of N.S. Wales; they have large heads, no abdominal legs, and two slender rat-like tails on the tip of the body. The sawfly measures 1 inch in length; the general colour is shining yellow, mottled with dull metallic blue on the thorax and abdomen; the semiopaque wings are barred with dark brown; the male has shorter antennae composed of short funnel shaped segments. There are a number of small species, belonging to the Genera Eurys, Euryopsis and Polyclonus, found chiefly upon flowers; Polyclonus atratus, sole representative of the Genus, has 18 jointed antennae, each joint furnished with a hairy finger turning inward at the tips. The Blister-leaf Sawfly, Phylacteophaga eucalypti, punctures the leaves of small gum trees; the larva feeds in the tissue, and when full grown pupates in a chamber in the centre, forming a distinct blister in the leaf: in the pupal state it has power to bend the body and rap against the side of the chamber. The sawfly measures ¼ of an inch in length; the male is black with a red head; the slightly larger female has the head and thorax reddish brown; the antennae have eight joints, long and slender. They have long stout legs, and are very active when they first emerge from the leaves, making a loud buzzing sound as they run about and try to escape.
Family 5. Gall-flies — Cynipidae
This is the first group of the Petiolata, which are often known from their small size as Micro-hymenoptera. They are all small creatures, differing from the succeeding families in that they are broadly speaking plant eating, usually forming galls in which they live and pupate. However, there are some that live upon the gall-making forms; others live only upon the tissue of their cousins’ galls without disturbing their host; and again some that are known as inqualines (visitors that dwell in the cavity with the true gall-maker); so that their life histories are somewhat complicated.
The typical gall-fly deposits her eggs in the tissues of the selected plant by means of her ovipositor, which is beautifully adapted for the purpose; she injects in some cases a fluid that keeps the wound from closing up at once and so destroying the delicate egg. Most of the Cynips galls are rounded woody excrescences. The Gall Wasps have wings with few cells and no stigma; the front portion of the thorax is joined to the second; the ovipositor is concealed; the antennae straight, containing from 13 to 15 joints. I described three hymenopterons forming galls on wattles (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1892), but these insects submitted to Dr. Mayr some years afterwards proved to belong to another family. The only species described from Australia are 3 named by Ashmead (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1900), which were collected by Koebele without any exact locality being given; and Hypodiranchis aphidis described by me as a parasite of the common peach aphis in the Agricultural Gazette N.S.W. 1904.
Family 6. Parasitic Wasps — Chalcididae
This is a very extensive family, the members of which differ from the other small wasps in having the antennae elbowed, the first segment often as long as all the others combined; the antennae may be simple, but are often clubbed at the tips, and in the males of some groups with the segments or joints feathered or furnished with slender branching fingers. The delicate gauze-like wings are traversed by very few veins, and the abdomen is produced into all sorts of curious shapes, ornamented sometimes with remarkable anal appendages; and the ovipositor of the female, though often short, is sometimes much longer than the whole insect, and is usually prominent. These tiny little creatures deposit their eggs in the eggs, larvae, and pupae of other insects, wood galls, and excrescences produced by other insects, though a few groups are plant feeders and even produce galls.
Most of them are very minute, and can only be collected by keeping infested galls, leaves, eggs and cocoons in jars and breeding them out, so that the majority of them escape the eye of the ordinary collector, though among the most beautiful of all insects in rich colours and delicate structure.
Walker described a number of Australian species in the British Museum Catalogue, Hymenoptera 1846, others in his Monograph of the family 1839, and the Proceedings of other Journals (1863, &c.); but his usual locality is simply “New Holland,” and without access to the types one would have some difficulty in determining any species. Westwood obtained and figured some of our largest; and Haliday others in the “Entomologist” 1842; while the few others described are those obtained by the zoologists on the various scientific expeditions visiting this country. Ashmead has contributed the only modern paper (Pro. Linn. Society N.S.W. 1900) on these and other parasitic hymenoptera collected by Mr. Koebele and myself. The species in the Genus Leucaspis are large thickset chalcids, with the ovipositor curving round and fitting into grooves in the dorsal surface of the abdomen. Leucaspis darlingi was obtained by Westwood from the Darling Downs Queensland (I have specimens from Mackay Q.): it is black mottled with yellow, and has brownish wings; the hind legs are swollen: the antennae thickened; and it measures ½ an inch. L. australis was obtained by Walker from S. Australia. Nothing is known about their habits, but Leucaspis gigas in Europe lays its eggs in the nests of mud-dauber wasps, piercing the clay walls with its stout ovipositor. Trichoxenia cineraria, a slightly smaller black insect, is deeply punctured all over the dorsal surface of the head and thorax; the wings are clouded at the apex; and the upper surface of the body is thickly clothed with dense yellow down, thickest toward the apex. Specimens in my collection were taken about Sydney.
The typical Genus Chalcis contains a number of short stout insects, generally black, sometimes marked with yellow and brown; they are easily distinguished by the globular form of the thighs of the hind legs, which are sometimes nearly as large as the abdomen. These insects are chiefly parasitic upon the larvae of small leaf-rolling moths: Chalcis vicaria is black, with the base of the tibiae and tarsi yellow; it is common about Mackay Queensland. I have bred numbers of Chalcis phya, a small black species with white mottled hind legs, from the chrysalids of the lucerne moth (Tortrix glaphyriana). Another undetermined yellow legged species has been bred from the codlin moth pupa. Eurytoma binotata, a tiny black insect clothed with a white pubescence, has the pronotum spotted with yellow, and the antennae and legs marked with reddish brown; it can be bred from the galls on the twigs of the turpentine gum. E. eucalypti, a smaller black species, slightly over ⅛ of an inch, comes out of eucalyptus galls collected at Uralla N.S.W. The members of the extensive Genus Megastigmus are all obtained from galls; they are more elongate in form, with broad globular heads, the males with short cylindrical bodies, but the larger females furnished with bristle-like ovipositors turning upward often longer than the whole insect. Megastigmus brachyscelides measures ¹⁄₁₂ of an inch, and is black to dark brown marked with yellow; it is bred from the large galls of Brachyscelis crispa. M. iamenus, originally described from Tasmania, I have bred from another gall coccid (B. pileata); also a larger light yellow species bred from dipterous galls on the Snow-bush (Aster ramulosus) has been named by Ashmead M. asteri; M. brachychitoni, ⅙ of an inch, reddish brown and yellow, is common in the large fleshy galls on the Kurrajong tree.
Stilbula peduncularis is a remarkable looking insect, with broad, rich metallic coppery red head and thorax; the basal portion of the abdomen forms a slender stalk with the apical tip produced into a small oval club. I have had a closely allied form out of the pupal cocoon of the red bull-dog ant.
The Perilampinae comprise some of the largest and most remarkable chalcids: Thaumasura terebrator has been described and figured by Westwood; my specimens came from S. Australia, and were sent by Mr. Blackburn. It is a slender, rich metallic purple insect, about ¼ of an inch in length to the apex of the flask-shaped body, which is continued in a long jointed tail three times the length of the whole insect. T. femor-rubra is a smaller insect with a tail not so long as the body, and of a general black colour with transparent wings and reddish legs. Dinoura auriventris is a very curious, metallic tinted species ¼ of an inch in length, with the apical portion of the attenuated abdomen produced into four flanges. I have bred a number of these wasps out of the large wood galls of coccids (Brachyscelinae), chiefly B. pileata. Pteromalus puparum is an introduced parasite of butterfly pupae, and is common about Sydney, where it infests that of the orange feeding butterfly (Papilio erectheus). Another tiny little metallic tinted chalcid, Eupelmus antipoda, infests the eggs of our common mantis.
About twenty species of the cosmopolitan Genus Tetrasticus are described by Walker, chiefly from Tasmania. The allied Tetrastichodes froggatti is a very tiny creature, described by Ashmead from shot-like galls on the leaves of eucalypts. Euryischia lestophoni, a larger black insect with mottled wings, is interesting to economic entomologists, as it is a secondary parasite of the Cottony Cushion Scale (Icerya purchasi), feeding on the fly parasite.
The Blastophaginae are remarkable little creatures, for there is a very great difference in the sexes of the same species; the males, yellow or brown, wingless, and blind, are more like white ants in general appearance than chalcids. They breed in the interior of figs, and are numerous in Australia. Saunders (Trans. Ent. Soc. 1883) described our common species (Pleistodontes imperialis), found in the fruit of the Moreton Bay fig about March. The tiny male, ¹⁄₁₂ of an inch in length, is of the typical form and colour; the elongate, shining black female (which is figured) is so different a looking creature that it would never be taken for the opposite sex of the insect. Their life history and remarkable habits have been described in the Agricultural Gazette (June 1900). Idarnis australis, described in the same paper, is a slender, bright, metallic green wasp, with a long tubular ovipositor nearly twice the length of the whole insect, which she also uses by pressing it down against the fig to jump like an acrobat, as well as for puncturing the skin of the fruit. The insect I described as the supplementary male of P. imperialis, is, Dr. Mayr tells me, the wingless male of this species. Mayr in “Neue Feigen-Insekten 1906” states that he finds that my identification is wrong and this is not the one named by Saunders but a new species which he calls Pleistodontes froggatti, and places my Idarnis in his Genus Sycoryctes.
1. Branch of Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla).
2. Immature fig attacked by Pleistodontes froggatti (Mayr), which are cutting their way into the fig. A female Idarnis australis on the right-hand side of the fig.
3. Section of fig, showing insects in the centre.
4. Pleistodontes froggatti (Mayr). ♀.
5. Cutting plate (mandibular appendage) used by the insect to cut into the fig.
6. Point of head, showing beak-like extremity, and the base of the mandibular appendage where attached to the head.
7. Wings of Pleistodontes froggatti (Mayr).
8. Pleistodontes froggatti (Mayr). ♂.
9. Idarnes australis (Froggatt). ♂.
10. Idarnes australis (Froggatt). ♀.
11. Idarnes australis (Froggatt), Wings.
Additional species of Chalcididae have been added to our fauna by the researches of Messrs. Perkins and Koebele (Bulletins 1, pts. 6 & 8 Hawaii 1905). In the Encryritinae he describes 12 new species, most of them bred from the pupae of the Dryinids collected in Queensland, but a few from more southern regions. Chalcerinys eximia is only ¹⁄₂₅ of an inch in length; is of a rich metallic green tint marked with black and brassy-yellowish tints, and is furnished with long antennae. It ranges from Bundaberg to Sydney. In the Eupelminae he describes one new species parasitic upon the parasite fly, Pipunculus cinerascens, under the name of Anastatus pipunculi. It is a bright metallic green and purple little creature about ¹⁄₁₂ of an inch in length. One species of the Tetrastichinae, which he calls Ootetrastichus beatus, has been bred from the eggs of leaf-hoppers from both Queensland and Fiji, while another parasite on the eggs of a Jassid embedded in the branchlets of a Eucalyptus was bred in Southern Queensland. Perkins describes it under the name of Pterygogramma acuminata, a tiny creature not ¹⁄₂₅ of an inch in length, of general brown and yellowish tints.
Five species of the parasitic wasps belonging to the Mymaridae are described from Queensland. They are all tiny little creatures with slender feathered wings and long legs. They deposit their eggs in the eggs of different species of leaf-hoppers, and some species are very abundant. Four species of the more robust parasites belonging to the Genus Aphanomerus are also described as egg parasites from Queensland. After studying the galls and insects from the wattles which I described in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society 1892, as belonging to the Cynipidae, Dr. Mayr finds that the insects will not fit into any known genera, so he has formed the Genus Trichilogaster to contain T. maideni, which forms galls on the branchlets of Acacia longifolia, and T. a-longifoliae, which aborts the flower buds of the same wattle into oval or rounded red and yellow galls as big as marbles. He describes a third species I sent him, T. pendulae, forming rounded galls on Acacia pendula, and has made the remarkable discovery that the tiny wasp deposits a female egg, which forms the central cavity on the gall with a second male egg in a small cavity on the side of the same gall, so that a male and female wasp is always produced from each gall, and he thinks this will be the case with our two common species when they are examined.
Family 7. Micro-hymenoptera — Proctotrypidae
In general appearance these tiny creatures, some of the smallest in the insect world, would seem to be almost identical with those of the previous family; but Ashmead says: “If the anomalous group Mymarinae are removed there will be no difficulty in distinguishing at a glance a Proctotrypid from a Chalcid,” and defines them thus: “In all true Proctotrypidae the pronotum extends back to the tegulae, and the ovipositor issues from the tip of the abdomen, the sheaths in a few abnormal cases being conjoined and forming a more or less cylindrical tube or scabbard for the reception of the two spiculae and the ovipositor proper.”
Sharp on the other hand considers that this is one of the most difficult groups of the Hymenoptera to define; to a specialist of course they can be easily separated, but anyone who first takes up the study of these Micro-hymenoptera (and bear in mind that we are talking about insects, so small that when a collector breeds them out in jars he has to liberate them upon a window pane that he may see them against the light), he will I think endorse Dr. Sharp’s decision. Besides the peculiarities of the abdomen previously noted, the antennae, sometimes twice the length of the whole insect, are composed of from 7 to 15 joints, and in the typical groups, though the first joint may be long, it is not elbowed as in the Chalcids, and is seldom branched. The wings are delicate, without any nervures, except in a few small groups where the veins are somewhat like those of small ichneumon wasps. The hind legs are generally longer than the others, and though some have the thighs swollen as in the Chalcids, they are as a rule much more slender, and the abdomen is usually pointed.
They can be bred from galls, particularly those of small Gall-flies (Cecidomyia), the eggs of all kinds of insects, and the larvae of small beetles, moths, and other wasps.
In Ashmead’s “Monograph of the Proctotrypidae of North America” nearly 600 species are described, and a number have been added since these were recorded in 1893. The Australian species are probably numerous, judging from my own observations when studying gall-making insects; but very few have been described. Westwood described four in his “Thesaurus Entomologicus, Oxford 1874,” belonging to the Bethyllides, the peculiarities of which he defines, and figures with coloured plates. Ashmead describes another (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1900) under the name of Ateleopterus longiceps, obtained by me in a hollow twig of a wattle tree; a shining black ant-like creature about ⅙ of an inch in length, rusty red legs, and transparent wings clouded at the base, probably parasitic on the larva of some wood boring beetle. Sierola antipoda was bred from the curious bract-like gall of Cecidomyia frauenfeldi on the twigs of Melaleuca bushes. A second species of this genus was collected by Webster, and forwarded to Ashmead, who named it after the sender.
In 1890 Riley described “An Australian Hymenopterous parasite of the fluted scale” in “Insect Life” which he named Ophelosia crawfordi; it is a tiny reddish brown wasp with a shining black body, and the wings obscurely barred with smoky brown; it is easily bred from this mealy bug, which it greatly keeps in check. Goniozus antipodum, described by Westwood from S. Australia, is a little shining black ant-like wasp which has been lately discovered destroying the grubs of codlin moth both in S. Australia and N.S. Wales. The larvae feed upon the outside of the grub, burying their heads in the tissue, and when full grown spin a loose silken cocoon.
Perkins has recently added a number of new species to this family belonging to the Dryinidae. In his Bulletins Hawaii 1905, Nos. 1 & 10, “Leaf Hoppers and their Natural Enemies,” he describes 45 new species, chiefly collected by Koebele in Queensland, but some from the neighbourhood of Sydney. These curious little proctotrypids are parasitic upon the larvae and pupae of the small homopterous insects commonly known as Leaf or Frog-hoppers (Families Jassidae and Fulgoridae). The adult wasp captures the insect, holding it with its curious clawed feet while it deposits its egg in its body; when full grown the larva spins a white silken cocoon, from which the active winged insect emerges in about 18 days.
Gonotopus australis is a tiny wingless ant-like creature about ¹⁄₁₂ of an inch in length, which attacks jassids and fulgorids feeding upon grass and low herbage. This species comes from Bundaberg Queensland; but Koebele has bred a second species about ⅛ of an inch in length, of a general brownish colour, from a Jassid collected near Parramatta. The curious little sacs or larval bags of these parasites can be readily noticed projecting from the sides of the thoracic segments. Most of these insects have well developed wings, but, according to Koebele’s observations, they stalk their prey when looking for the host for their egg.
Family 8. Larger Parasitic Wasps — Ichneumonidae
These are commonly known as Ichneumon Flies, and the family is a very extensive one. They play an important part in the economy of Nature in destroying thousands of the moth and other larvae that would otherwise strip our fields and forests of their grass and foliage, and they are therefore useful allies to the agriculturist; though they also often destroy other beneficial insects as well as pests, and thus discount their usefulness. Ichneumon Flies are moderately sized insects furnished with long slender antennae composed of from 16 to upward of 60 joints, with the basal one often thickened, but never elbowed. The wings are well developed, with a distinct stigma and numerous nervures forming regular cells; a few species are wingless in both sexes, but these exceptional ones have not been recorded from this country. The legs are long, generally slender, and well adapted for running about; the abdomen is usually long, rounded or cylindrical, joined to the thorax on the under side, and more or less stalked, while the ovipositor of the female is characteristic of the group and adapted or modified for laying the eggs in or upon the different hosts they prefer to adopt for their offspring; when they infest wood boring caterpillars that are somewhat out of reach, the ovipositor is correspondingly long and the sheath and “tails” produced so as to guide the eggs to their resting place on the grub, out of the sight of the parent ichneumon. When the species lays its eggs on the back of leaf-eating insects with no protective covering, the ovipositor is generally short and stout, the tip sometimes so stiff and sharp, that several species are credited with stinging people when handled. The little wasp-grub, hatching from the egg either deposited on the back or placed beneath the skin, feeds upon the substance of the body of its victim without touching the vital organs, so that in most instances where the caterpillar of a moth is infested, it yet has the power to form its cocoon and pupate before the wasp-grub has finished growing; the latter thus finishes its final transformation in the destroyed moth pupa, and cuts its way out through the side of the cocoon when ready to emerge. Usually, if it is a large species, the ichneumon deposits only one egg in its victim, but in some of the smaller ones half a dozen can be bred from a single cocoon. Over 6,000 species of these insects have been described from all parts of the world, and in many countries, such as this, the native species are still hardly known, and much confusion exists in their classification on account of their parasitic habits and the number of different hosts that the same species may infest; but now that so many economic entomologists are at work all over the world, it will probably not be long before they will have many admirers, and a rich field awaits the entomologist who takes up the study of Australian ichneumons.
Cresson in his “Synopsis of the North American Hymenoptera” lists over 1,100 described species, while in Australia up to the time when Brullé published his “Histoire Naturelle des Insectes, Hymenopteres,” in 1846, only one or two had been described, to which he added eighteen species; Kirby, Smith, Cameron and several foreign entomologists have added a few more; and in Ashmead’s recent paper ten more Australian species are described, which makes a very meagre list.
The Spotted Black Ichneumon, Pimpla intricatoria, is one of our largest common species, having a wide distribution over Australia, and it breeds in a number of different moths. It measures nearly 1 inch in length to the tip of the short ovipositor, and is of a uniform black colour with red legs and antennae; the thorax and abdomen are ornamented with pale yellow spots, those on the latter oval, forming a row on either side.
The Dark-winged Ichneumon, Rhyssa semipunctata, is a more slender species of about the same length; is of a uniform dull red colour except the basal half of the abdomen, which is black with white markings on the sides; the wings are clouded with brown, darkest on the inner portion. These wasps always follow up the cut worms and caterpillar plagues, and destroy immense numbers in the pupal stage.
The Spotted Ichneumon, Mesotenus albopictus, is somewhat smaller, with slender stalked abdomen and the slender ovipositor turned downward: the general colour is black, with the antennae marked with yellow toward the apical portion; the head, thorax and abdomen are richly marked with light yellow; light brown wings and red legs mottled with black and yellow. This ichneumon breeds in a great number of different cocoons, and frequently emerges from the oval cup-like ones of the “Stinging Caterpillars” (Doratifera and Limacodes).
The Ophioninae comprises a number of genera, of which the typical species are reddish brown insects, with clear wings and curiously curved, laterally flattened bodies, broadest at the extremity. They are frequently noticed in numbers among the low scrub in the day time, and in the summer evenings often fly into the house round the lighted lamp. Six species of the typical Genus Ophion are described from Australia; but none of the Genus Anomalon have been recorded.
Bassus laetatorius is a well known Ichneumon which has a very wide range over the globe, and is not a useful species, for it lays its eggs in the larvae of Syrphid flies, which feed upon different kinds of plant lice (Aphis) and are very useful insects to the gardener. It measures about ¼ of an inch in length, with the head, thorax, tip and base of the abdomen black, the rest reddish brown with yellow markings on the head. The tibiae of the hind legs are very distinctly banded with white, black, and reddish brown, giving it quite a distinctive character.
Family 9. Small Ichneumons — Braconidae
These are insects with very similar habits but easily separated from the large ichneumon wasps by the structure of the fore wings, as they have the outer cross veins wanting, thus showing two long outer cells, which in the former are divided into two cells. The antennae are always composed of more than fifteen joints, and the segments of the abdomen are more soldered together. Many of them, like the Microgasters, are very small, others are as large as many of the smaller true ichneumons. This country is probably very rich in indigenous species, while we have a considerable number that have been introduced with their host insect; but hardly anything has been done in describing our species. As far back as 1775 Fabricius named 4 species of the typical Genus Bracon, to which only three other species have been added, though over 500 species are listed in Dalla Torre’s Catalogue in the cosmopolitan Genus Bracon from other parts of the globe.
The typical Braconid is usually very small; many of them are no larger than some of the Chalcids. Wherever the cabbage aphis or other plant infesting insects such as caterpillars are to be found, these little wasps can be observed hovering round, waiting for an opportunity to deposit their eggs. They differ from the large ichneumons, in that while the latter only deposit a single, or at most a dozen eggs upon a victim, these often place hundreds in a large caterpillar, which, emerging when full grown, form little white oval silken cocoons on the top of the remains of their hosts, that are sometimes surrounded with a mass of white fibre exactly like cotton wool. After a plague of cut worms has passed over a paddock it is quite common to find clusters of these little cocoons attached to the grass stalks; these have been often sent to me from the country with the information that they were the eggs of the plague caterpillars or cut worms.
Bracon limbatus, one of our larger typical species, is found in Tasmania, and has a wide range over Australia. It measures about ½ an inch from the front of the head to the tip of the abdomen, and is of a general black colour on the upper surface, with dusky almost black wings, and a red head. The under-surface is marked with brown, with the thorax, thighs, and tibiae of the front and middle legs black; the three slender curled hair-like tails forming the ovipositor being longer than the whole insect. Eight other species of Bracon are described, several of which are also recorded from New Guinea and New Zealand. Among the introduced species is Lepolexis rapae of Curtis, which is parasitic upon the cabbage aphis in Europe; it can be collected in gardens about Sydney. Aphids containing these parasites are always swollen, round, and apparently dead skins through which each braconid eats its way.
Five species of the Genus Agathes are described; they are remarkable for their showy particoloured wings, and large size in comparison with other members of this family. Ashmead has described a tiny black species marked with yellow bred by me from the larva of a Noctuid Moth, an undetermined species of Agrotis, under the name of Apanteles antipoda; and a second larger one as Apanteles australasiae. In his Genus Microbracon he has described a dainty little black and yellow creature that infests the larvae of our scale-eating moth (Thalpochares coccophaga) under the name of Microbracon thalpocaris.
Family 10. Ruby Wasps — Chrysididae
The popular and scientific names of these insects refer to the brilliant metallic blue, green, golden or copper coloured tints of their armour-plated bodies, which are also covered with coarse punctures, finest upon the abdomen. They are stout thickset wasps with short curled antennae and large eyes; the thorax is broad and closely attached to the abdomen, the latter composed of from three to five segments, the first generally much shorter than the second, with the last toothed along the hind margin, and characteristic of the different species; the under-surface of these plates is concave, with the tip of the abdomen produced into a tubular process, so that when alarmed the wasp can curl her body round into a ball, protected on all sides by the armour-like integument; and as she lays her eggs in the nests of other wasps and bees, and is sometimes caught in the act, this habit is probably a wise provision of Nature which enables her to resist the sting of the lawful nest maker.
Some of the earlier observers called them “Cuckoo Wasps,” under the impression that their larvae, when hatched out in the nests of hunting wasps or bees that filled the cells with insects or bee bread, fed upon the stored food supplies, but later researches show that, though the egg of both the lawful occupant and the intruder may be deposited in the cell, the latter does not hatch until the former has devoured all the food placed there by his mother and is ready to pupate; then the ruby wasp baby comes out, attaches itself to the full fed larva beside it, and sucks him dry, pupating in his skin.
Most of our species that I have bred out are parasitic in the clay nests of the smaller Mason Wasps, Odynerus and Alastor, though in Europe many species live in the nests of bees. The perfect insects are generally found crawling over or flying round old fences or stumps and dead trees in the hottest part of the day. Our species were described by F. Smith in 1874 in his revision of the family, in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London; a few others have since been added to the list by Mocsáry, who monographed the Chrysididae in 1889; and Gribodo in the Annals of the Mus. Geneva, 1879.
No member of the typical Genus Cleptes common in Europe and America is recorded from Australia; but two well defined species of the beautiful ruby wasps of the Genus Stilbum that has a world wide range are described, Stilbum splendidum confined to Australia and New Caledonia, and Stilbum amethystinium, found also in Asia, Africa and America. The great Genus Chrysis, which contains over 600 described species, is represented here by about 27 species.
Family 11. Hatchet-bodied Wasps — Evaniidae
Under the recent classification of this family it now comprises three very well defined genera, which have moderately thick antennae, not elbowed, consisting of thirteen or fourteen joints; the nervures of the wings not so well defined as those of the Ichneumons; and the stalked abdomen attached to the upper part of the metathorax. They are well represented in this country, and have been chiefly described by Westwood and Schletterer.
Family Megalyridae.
1. Megalyra fasciipennis (Westwood). ♀.
Family Ichneumonidae.
2. Pimpla intricatoria (Fabr.). ♀.
Family Evaniidae.
3. Gasteruption sp.
Family Mutillidae.
4. Mutilla formicaria (Westwood). ♀.
Family Chrysididae.
5. Stilbum splendidum (Fabr.).
Family Thynnidae.
6. Diamma bicolor (Westwood).
10. Thynnus variabilis (Kirby). ♀.
11. Thynnus variabilis (Kirby). ♂.
Family Scoliidae.
7. Trielus zonata (Smith). ♀.
8. Discolia verticalis (Fabr.). ♂.
9. Discolia soror (Smith). ♀.
Family Sphegidae.
12. Bembex tridentifera (Smith).
(Original photo. Burton.)
The members of the typical Genus Evania are generally shining black insects, sometimes variegated with dull red markings; the head and thorax are short and broad; the abdomen has the first segment produced into a slender stalk, and the remaining ones forming a vertically compressed hatchet-like body. They are parasitic upon the egg cases of cockroaches; some with a very wide range have been introduced in all probability with their cosmopolitan hosts, while they are often found in the house flying on the window panes, evidently introduced in the same manner. In the bush the perfect insects are commonly found on flowering shrubs in the summer time. About 20 species are described from Australia and Tasmania. Evania princeps is of a uniform black colour with dusky wings, and is recorded from most parts of Australia, Woodlark Island and New Guinea. It is one of our largest species, measuring ½ an inch in length, broad in proportion, and furnished with very long spined legs.
The Genus Gasteruption, which takes the place of the Genus Foenus in the earlier catalogues, contains 36 described species from Australia; as they are rare insects, there are probably many more to be discovered. Nothing is known about their habits for certain, but they are supposed to be parasitic upon the larvae of wood boring insects; I have generally found them flying round the trunk of a dead or burnt tree. They differ from the former genus in having the head almost globular, with antennae standing out straight in front, and large oval eyes on the sides; the thorax is more elongate, rounded in front, so that the insect appears to have a slight neck. The abdomen springs from a rounded node on the thorax, with the basal segments slender, swelling out gradually, and broadest at the tip; the females bear a very long hair-like ovipositor. The legs are slender, the hind pair longest, with both the thighs and apical half of the tibiae thickened in a very distinctive manner. Ten species are described from Sydney; and one, Gasteruption pedunculatum, is also common to New Zealand.
The Genus Aulacus contains ten described species of smaller insects. Aulacus apicalis is parasitic upon the larvae of a longicorn beetle (Piesarthrius marginellus). I have found as many as fifty, each enclosed in a thin parchment cocoon, all matted together in a single cavity. This little wasp has a long extended ovipositor, and measures about ½ an inch in length; the head and greater portion of the abdomen is black, the rest reddish brown, with a blotch of yellow on the upper surface of the base of the abdomen; the hyaline wings are tipped with black.
Family 12. Long-tailed Wasps — Megalyridae
These remarkable parasitic wasps, peculiar to Australia, are comprised in a single genus containing 16 species, none of which are very common. They are all shining black insects; the head short, broad and almost rounded, the thorax broad and stout, both very rugose and clothed with fine silvery hairs on the sides; the eyes large, circular, and very prominent; ocelli small; the antennae composed of irregular wiry joints; the wings semitransparent, generally banded with black, and the transverse nervures wanting in the apical half; legs long, with the thighs thickened. The abdomen is closely attached to the thorax, cylindrical, tapering to the extremity, and in the females furnished with an ovipositor often more than three times the whole length of the insect, looking exactly like three black horse-hairs. These elongated ovipositors are used for depositing their eggs in the wood-boring larvae of longicorn beetles belonging to the Genus Phoracantha, and probably others of like habits, which feed under the bark in the sap wood of different eucalypts. The perfect insects are generally found about flowers on low shrubs in summer.
Megalyra shuchardi is of the usual black colour with silvery pubescence; the wings are pitch black and opaque: the whole insect measures slightly under 1 inch in length, with the ovipositor over three inches. It is found in Victoria and New South Wales, and also recorded from Melville Island on the North Coast. Megalyra fasciipennis was described by Westwood when he founded the genus, in the Transactions of the Entomological Society 1841; and it is again figured in Griffith’s Animal Kingdom, Insects, Vol. II. It is much smaller than the previous one, of similar form, the legs and ovipositor reddish brown, the wings hyaline, barred across the centre and clouded at the extremities with blackish brown. The male is much smaller than the female, with similar wings, but the body is more slender and comes to a point at the tip, furnished with a curious bifid anal appendage. This is the species we have found breeding from the longicorn larvae.
Six other species have been described, some by Schletterer (Berliner Entom. Zeitschrift 1889); one, Megalyra melanoptera, closely allied to Westwood’s dark winged species. In 1902 Szepligeti (Termes Z. Fuzetek, xxv.) monographed the family and added one more; and Bradley last year, describing the last new form (Trans. Ent. Society of London 1905) appends a translation of the former’s tabulation of all the known species, seven in number. I have (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1906) since added 8 new species to the list.
Family 13. Ants — Formicidae
The ants are among the first insects that attract one’s notice in a new country; civilization seems to agree with many species which form their nests in the lawns or gardens, and even take up their quarters in the house. Within the last decade a small introduced species has appeared in the heart of London, and the small red ant, Monomorium pharaonis, is a world wide pest in houses from Europe to Australia.
Ants live in communities forming nests in the ground, under logs or stones, or in dead trees, and sometimes among the foliage of plants. These communities consist of winged males and females, and wingless aborted females known as workers, the bulk of the family consisting of the latter; in some groups there are several varieties of workers, that are often called soldiers on account of their great size and swollen heads. In those species that are furnished with a sting both the workers and winged females should be handled with care.
They are divided into five sub-families, based on the difference in the structure of the segments of the body, absence or presence of a sting, and a few other minor characters. The leading specialists differ somewhat in the sequence of these groups; I follow Forel in placing the Ponerinae at the head of the family; and for a good classification and definition of the genera would refer my readers to Emery’s paper in the “Annales de la Societe Entomologique de Belgique,” Vol. xl., 1896. All our species described before 1858 are listed in Smith’s British Museum “Catalogue of the Formicidae,” where he described a number of new species: Lowne described a number of new species collected in the neighbourhood of Sydney in the Entomologist, Vol. ii., 1865: Mayr in several papers, chief of which are “Myrmecologische Studien,” “Neue Formiciden,” and “Die Australischen Formiciden” added many up to 1876. Emery, Forel, and others have since added to the list; and in Dalla Torre’s great “Catalogue of the Hymenoptera,” published in 1893, all species described up to that date are recorded. I have lately (1905) published a list of Australian species (Miscellaneous Publications No. 889, Dep. Agr. N.S.W.), including all Forel and others have added to our fauna, in which nearly 400 species are recorded, without counting the large number of races and varieties into which some of them are divided. From my own researches I think a great many more will be found when they are systematically collected in the tropical scrubs and the dry districts in the interior, which as yet have hardly been touched.
The sub-family Ponerinae includes many large or medium sized ants with elongated bodies furnished with only one constricted segment or node at the base of the abdomen, and the latter terminating in a powerful sting. The larvae are enclosed in stout silken cocoons. The Genus Myrmecia contains most of our largest typical species peculiar to Australia, popularly known as “bull-dog ants,” “inchmen,” or “jumpers”; about 34 species have been described, some of which have a very wide range. The “Jumper,” Myrmecia albo-cincta, forms its nest under the shelter of a low bush; it is a low mound with an opening on the summit, and another on the side level with the ground; when disturbed these ants come rushing out like a pack of dogs with a series of short jumps, and attack everything they meet. It is one of the smaller species, about ½ an inch in length, of a uniform black colour, with only the front and hind portion of the thorax brownish red to yellow. Myrmecia forficata is our large red and black “bull-dog ant,” with a very extended range like the previous one from Victoria to Queensland. They measure up to 1 inch in length, and are of a uniform dull red, except the eyes and abdomen, which are black. They live in rather large colonies up to 200 in number, digging deep circular shafts or irregular chambers under logs; when away from the latter, they form regular domed mounds over the nests, which in summer contain the large, elongated, oval, brown sacks enclosing the pupae, and often a number of winged males and females; the former with small heads and jaws, the latter with jaws as large or larger than those of the workers. Myrmecia gulosa is of a lighter red colour, with the tip of the abdomen black. M. tarsata is our common black bull-dog ant, with yellow jaws, and antennae and tips of the legs reddish brown; it has a great habit of hunting up and down the larger tree trunks, and drops to the ground at the least alarm; when disturbed in the nest, if the first two or three are captured, the others will usually retreat down their burrows, and not show fight like the other species. Sharp notes the bull-dog as forming large mounds (Cambridge Natural History); but I think he was misinformed, as the nests of the Mound Ant, Iridomyrmex detectus, are often confounded with these ants. The Genus Odontomachus contains a number of curious slender black ants with large heads and long projecting jaws; they are more tropical in their range, but O. ruficeps and its varieties are found from the Darling River N.S. Wales through Queensland to North Australia.
The “Green-head,” Ectatomma metallicum, is a common ant of medium size that lives in small communities under stones or logs, and often makes nests in the dry banks of lawns in our gardens. Though somewhat sluggish, they sting sharply if they crawl on one when resting on the grass. About 28 species and many varieties of this genus occur in Australia; one in New Zealand; and 3 in New Caledonia. The members of the Genus Ponera are remarkable for their extended range; we have several species or varieties in Queensland closely allied to species from South America, Borneo, Europe, and Africa, while three are recorded from New Zealand; Euponera lutea, a slender pale yellow ant with the abdominal segment constricted, lives in small communities under stones or roots. It ranges from Sydney to Fremantle, round to N. Queensland. Pachycondyla piliventris is a large, hairy black ant with large head and rounded body, roughened, and clothed with fine rusty down. They are generally found under stones in communities of a dozen or so, and when exposed or disturbed pretend to be dead, with their legs folded up under the body; they are common about Sydney.
Six species of the Genus Sphinctomyrmex are found chiefly in the North. They are somewhat rare ants; I have found two species, both small, slender, dull brownish yellow insects living under stones; S. froggatti in a vineyard near Sydney; and the second, S. hednigae, in the New England district under large stones.
The second sub-family, Dorylinae, comprises ants with the antennae placed close together in the front of the head, the abdomen elongated, with the first segment forming an irregular node. This group contains some very remarkable ants in Africa and America, but is only represented in Australia by two species belonging to the Genus Ænictus, both of which are described from specimens collected by Turner at Mackay, Queensland.
The third sub-family, Myrmicinae, is well represented here; they are all small or medium sized ants, with the base of the abdomen formed into two small nodes, and the sting rudimentary; the pupa naked and not enclosed in a cocoon. Many of them live in very large communities.
The members of the Genus Meranoplus are tiny little brown ants with rounded heads and bodies, resembling some of the small wingless female Mutillid in shape and habits, for though they form irregular galleries under stones or in dry banks, they are generally found running up and down tree trunks; when touched they curl up the body and sham death. Meranoplus oceanicus, reddish brown, is common in N.S. Wales; M. pubescens has a very wide range right round Australia.
Monomorium pharaonis is our tiny red house-ant introduced from Europe, now world wide in its range; and when once it becomes established in a house is a difficult pest to destroy. M. rubriceps, a much larger species but under ¼ of an inch in length, is bright reddish brown, with the nodes very small and the apical portion of the abdomen black, and broadly rounded. It is found crawling upon the trunks of trees, and has a wide range from Sydney to Cape York. The typical tree-trunk ants included in the Genus Podomyrma are much larger ants, sluggish in their habits, forming their nests in tree stems and always found crawling about the trunks. They are broad-headed ants with short stout jaws toothed at the tips; the thorax is widest in front, tapering to the narrow pedicle of the broadly rounded abdomen; the thighs of the legs are thickened in the centre. Podomyrma gratiosa, under ½ an inch in length, is bright reddish brown, rugose and spined on the front margin of the thorax, with the abdomen black, smooth, and shining; it is widely distributed over Australia from Adelaide to Cape York. P. adelaidae is a smaller species with black legs, and a distinct oval brown blotch on either side of the black abdomen; it is common in South Australia and Victoria. P. bimaculata is still smaller, with the blotches on the abdomen smaller and more oval; I have had it from Kalgoorlie W.A., and Wagga N.S. Wales.
Family Formicidae.
1. Iridomyrmex detectus (Smith).
2. Polyrhachis semi-aurata (Mayr).
3. Myrmecia gulosa (Fabr.).
4. Ectatomma metallicum (Smith).
5. Iridomyrmex rufoniger (Lowne).
6. Camponotus nigriceps (Smith).
The Genus Pheidole is well represented in Australia by 22 species and many varieties found in all parts of the country, forming irregular chambers and galleries under stones and logs; they are tiny reddish brown ants, with a very large headed form of soldiers often four or five times the size of the ordinary workers. The winged forms are also very large in proportion. Pheidole bos is dark reddish brown, the soldiers furnished with very large swollen heads; it ranges from Western Australia to Victoria. P. anthracina is a darker coloured form, ranging from the northern portion of N.S. Wales into Queensland. The members of the Genus Cremastogaster are very small black, brown, or dull yellow coloured ants with longer legs, and heart-shaped bodies; they live in large communities in nests under logs and stones. C. fusca is black with reddish tarsi, and a reddish tint on the thorax; it comes from Queensland. C. pallipes and C. ruficeps are lighter coloured, found under stones about Sydney.
Sima laeviceps is a very curious elongated shining black ant with reddish brown antennae and tarsi, which ranges up the Queensland coast to N.W. Australia, and is found crawling about on tree trunks, when touched curling its body up like a wasp and shamming death.
The sub-family Dolichoderinae comprises a number of small or medium sized ants living often in very large communities and having naked pupae. The base of the abdomen consists of a single small node with no constriction between the two following segments; sting practically wanting (rudimentary). The typical Genus Dolichoderus is represented here by five species widely distributed. D. doriae is common about Sydney living in large communities under logs, often clustered over each other like a swarm of bees; they collect on the leaves of eucalypts, upon which the sugar lerp psylla, (Spondylaspis eucalypti) constructs its larval scales, and suck or lick up the sugary exudation. This ant measures ¼ of an inch in length; the head and thorax are black and roughened; the legs reddish brown, and the flattened heart-shaped abdomen clothed with a silvery pubescence. Leptomyrmex erythrocephalus might well be called the “Silly Ant” from the aimless manner in which it rushes about with its head stuck up in the air, and its abdomen curled over its back. They live in underground nests sometimes deep down, but others live under stones; they are slender-bodied, long-legged black ants under ½ an inch in length, with an oval red head, rounded behind with long slender antennae, and the front of the thorax produced into a slender neck. In some varieties the whole of the thorax, legs, and head are yellowish brown.
The typical Genus Iridomyrmex contains 18 distinct species, some of which have been subdivided into three or four varieties or races; most of them are small, except our “Mound Ant,” sometimes known as the “Meat Ant,” Iridomyrmex detectus, which is the commonest and most widely distributed ant in Australia. They construct large mounds a couple of feet above the surface of the ground, and two or three yards in diameter; they are formed of the soil excavated from beneath when forming their network of irregular open galleries; the upper surface is pierced with numbers of rounded vertical shafts, up which they swarm in countless thousands and attack any intruder, biting savagely with their stout sharp jaws and making things generally unpleasant for the stranger. When a mound is situated in open grassed country, one can trace regular bare roads leading off from the nest, worn smooth by the regular stream of ants passing backward and forward day after day. It is too well known to need description, but measures about ⅓ of an inch in length, and is of a general brownish purple tint, with the head light reddish brown. Smith described the worker under the name of Formica purpurea, and the male as F. detectus, so in most Museum collections it will be found under the former specific name. Forel has made a new variety, which he calls Var sanguineus, of the coastal form found in North Queensland, with the head and thorax light reddish brown.
Most of the other species are small black ants: Iridomyrmex rufoniger is very common in the bush and in the gardens; a variety which Forel has called domesticus is the common black ant that comes into the house in Sydney, and is a regular pest in the summer in many districts. Tapinoma minutum is about as large as the “Mound Ant”; black; the head and thorax deeply pitted and corrugated; the abdomen slightly constricted in the centre, smooth and shining. It comes from Townsville, N.Q.: a second species, T. melanocephalum, taken in Cairns, is also found in Samoa and the Tonga Islands.
The last sub-family, Camponotinae, is a large division well represented in Australia; they live in more or less large communities, and with a few exceptions have the pupae enclosed in cocoons. The base of the abdomen forms a single node, and there is no constriction between the second and third abdominal segments; the sting is wanting, and the anal orifice is fringed with hairs. In the works of early entomologists a number of our ants were described under the Genus Formica, but they have been gradually identified and placed in their proper genera, until we only have about half a dozen still remaining in this genus, probably more on account of the difficulty of identifying them than because they really belong here.
The Genus Acantholepis is represented by four species all described by Forel from specimens I have collected and sent him from N.S. Wales, so that their range seems to be restricted. They are all small, reddish brown, smooth, shining ants; A. bosii was found under stones at Cooma, N.S.W.
The Green Tree-ant, Oecophylla smaragdina, found in tropical Africa, India, and New Guinea, is common in the tropical scrubs on the coast of North Queensland. They live in large communities among the foliage of the trees, in nests formed by webbing the leaves together into an irregular mass varying in size from a cricket ball to a man’s head. The material with which they make these nests is obtained by the workers, by squeezing the pupae and using the secretion they discharge. The winged female measures nearly ¾ of an inch in length, has a broad thorax and large oval body; the worker is only about ¼ of an inch, and slender in proportion, but for his size is the most pugnacious creature in the insect world; if one damages a nest pushing through the scrub, down tumble a swarm of green tree ants on one’s head and neck, and wherever they drop they stick their jaws in and hang on, and each one has to be picked off in detail. In these forests they destroy an immense number of insects, catching the little bees as they come out of their nests in the tree trunks, and dragging the small beetles off the twigs by main force. I have often seen half a dozen hanging on to the legs of a stout weevil, apparently trying to wear him out, for they would remain for hours in the same position, and probably succeeded in the end.
The great Genus Camponotus contains about 400 described species from all parts of the world, of which about 60 are recorded from Australia. Most of them are found in open forest country, forming their nests in the ground, under logs or stones, or near the butts of trees. Several of our common species are known as “sugar ants,” as they come about at night and invade the pantry and store room in search of sweets; but they are omnivorous in their tastes, and will often come round the camp fire at night, prowling about for the small moths that flutter round, often rushing right into the edge of the ashes to capture a moth when it falls with singed wings. Camponotus intrepidus is one of our largest species, varying from black to reddish brown in tint, and is thickly clothed with short hair. They form nests in the open sandstone country about Sydney, sometimes raising a little mound or producing a fragile funnel-shaped structure above the opening leading into the nest. The Sugar Ant, Camponotus nigriceps, is the commonest house species; it forms large chambers under stones or logs in which they all cluster together. The general colour is black, with all the abdomen except the base dull yellow, but the variations of the yellow and black are common; it measures to ¾ of an inch in length.
Camponotus inflatus is the curious “honey ant” of Central Australia figured and described by Lubbock in his “Bees, Ants, and Wasps.” The naturalists on the Horn Exploring Expedition obtained a number of this and other species, described by me in the Zoology of this Expedition. The ordinary members of the “honey pot ants” are of the usual normal form, but certain individuals of each nest of these species are crammed with a honey secretion (probably obtained by the workers from aphids or psyllids), until the abdomen swells out of all proportion to the rest of the ant; the honey pot ants remain hanging about in the bottom of the nests like a number of bottles of honey, incapable of leaving the nest; the supply is probably used as food for the larvae. Spencer says that the blacks dig up these nests and look upon the “honey pots” as great luxuries. The honey is sweet with an acrid taste like the honey of our native bees. They are apparently common in Central Australia; Miss Ormerod sent me some from England which she had received from a correspondent at Kalgoorlie; and recently Mr. Field of Tennant’s Creek sent me a fine red species from the far north.
Camponotus claripes, a smaller pale coloured species, generally makes its galleries at the base of a tree trunk, and has a very wide range from Victoria to North Queensland. I found the cocoons of this species in a nest at Howlong infested with full grown red velvet mites (Trombidiidae), which occupied the whole space.
The Genus Polyrhachis contains a number of black ants of fair size, most of which build their nests in dead logs, and live in rather large communities, but others form small nests by matting the foliage of trees together; the latter are confined to Queensland, and are generally smaller shining black forms. The true “wood ants” are more or less covered with bright metallic pubescence and fine hairs, and with the hind portion of the thorax and the node of the abdomen ornamented with a pair of slender spines.
Polyrhachis ornata is black, with the thorax and base of the spines richly tinted with gold; it comes from Queensland. P. ammon, ranging from Victoria to Queensland, is clothed with pale golden pubescence lightest on the head and thickest on the abdomen. P. semi-aurata has both the head and thorax golden, with the abdomen smooth, black and shining. P. laevior is one of the smaller tree nesting forms, and is smooth and shining without any metallic tints, and the thoracic and abdominal spines are very small. P. turneri, also a northern form, has the head golden, and large well developed spines.
Family 14. Solitary Ants — Mutillidae
Though these interesting little creatures were once placed in the Formicidae, and are still popularly known as “Solitary Ants” in Europe and “Cow Ants” in America, they are now classified as the first family of the fossorial wasps. Unlike the true ants, they are solitary in their habits and probably all parasitic in other insects’ nests. Until quite recently they were all placed in the Genus Mutilla, in which about 1,000 species have been described from all parts of the world, and about 130 from Australia; the earlier ones by Messrs. Westwood and Smith, the later ones by Andre, who has had the great advantage of obtaining a great many specimens from Mr. Gilbert Turner, who was able to sex the species, add valuable notes about their habits, and give the exact locality of the specimens collected. Turner, who was a most careful observer, after some years of collecting was not positive where they passed the earlier stages of their existence, but told me that he believed that some of them were parasitic in the nests of ants. Several of the European Mutillidae are known to be parasitic in the nests of bees: I have on several occasions dug the females of the smaller species out of moss at the foot of tree trunks, and our two largest species are generally found under stones in open chambers, while on hot summer days both sexes of Mutilla cordata and several other species are found running up and down the tree trunks.
The males are furnished with two pairs of dark or semiopaque wings. The head is rounded; the antennae curving round; with large eyes and ocelli; the thorax broad, but showing the segmental divisions, and the abdomen rather short and rounded, without any pedicle; the legs stout, and spined on the middle pair. The whole insect is rugose and deeply punctured or roughened, and more or less clothed with pubescence and longer hairs. The females are wingless, with shorter curled antennae, very different in size, sculpture, and even colouration to the males of the same species; with the body more elongated and terminating in a long powerful sting. Andre remarks upon the brilliant metallic colouration of many of the Australian species, which is much more pronounced than in those from other parts of the world. He also says that they resemble the American species in the fact that they can be divided into two groups by the configuration of the eyes.
Within the last few years specialists have subdivided the Genus Mutilla into a number of new genera; and Andre places nearly all the Australian species in the Genus Ephutermorpha, but for simplicity I retain the old name.
Mutilla rugicollis, described by Westwood many years ago, is our largest species, measuring in the larger female over ¾ of an inch in length. She is black, very deeply punctured, thickly clothed with black and silvery white hairs, the latter forming white patches on the hind portion of the head, sides and under-surface of the abdomen, and has a dorsal row of five distinct spots down the back. The male is much smaller, with somewhat similar but not so distinct white markings, and is furnished with dark brown wings, which are hyaline, close to the sides of the thorax.
Mutilla quadrisignata has about the same measurements as the female of the last species; with blackish hairy covering, except on the under surface of the abdomen, and four dark, reddish brown, oval spots forming a square on the dorsal surface. Both these species have a wide range over Australia. Mutilla ferruginata is a smaller species with a similar deeply punctured surface; is of a uniform dull rusty red colour, thickly clothed with darker brown hairs; the legs and antennae deeper coloured than the body. Mutilla cordata is typical of the smaller active forms that frequent tree trunks; the male is black with dark wings and slender abdomen, and measures about ⅓ of an inch in length; in this case much larger than the female, which has a rounded body with the centre of the dorsal surface occupied with a large rounded golden blotch. I have found the best time to collect these insects is in the hottest part of the day, when they are running up and down the larger tree trunks; but they are very active, and drop at the least alarm, so that it takes some practice to capture them.
Family 15. Flower Wasps — Thynnidae
These handsome flower wasps are closely allied to the members of the previous family, as they have similar wingless females of such peculiar shapes that, if examined alone, they would never be taken for the consorts of the large wasp-like Thynnus, with its long stout antennae, well developed legs, and large powerful wings. The males fly about the flowers of leptospermum and eucalypts, and when captured bite and pretend to sting by turning up the tip of the abdomen, which ends in a horny, harmless process. Fortunately, when hunted for in the summer, most of our commoner species can be taken in copula with the smaller female, with which he flies about quite easily; when caught the female immediately detaches herself and falls to the ground, where she crawls out of sight, so that care must be taken by the collector to keep each pair captured in a box by themselves, or else when once mixed up it is impossible to determine unknown species. Australia is the headquarters of this group, for of about 400 described species, 300 are peculiar to this country; the others are chiefly confined to Brazil and Chili in South America, with a few from Asia and the Islands. Smith has described a great number in the British Museum Catalogues; Westwood others; and Guerin those collected during the Voyage de Coquille in 1830; but as many of these were determined from single specimens of one sex, it is certain that when a collection of sexed specimens can be compared with the types, the number of species will suffer considerable reduction.
Nothing definite is known about the earlier stages of their development; I have however obtained cocoons composed of a stout silken case enveloped in a thin outer second papery covering, oval in form, with a nipple-like projection at the extremity, from which I have bred one of our large species. These cocoons are buried several inches in the ground like those of the Scolias, so that the females, which are furnished with short, stout, spiny legs well adapted for digging, probably lay their eggs in lamellicorn larvae living in the loose soil.
A number of our common species are plentiful on the flowering Leptospermum and Melaleuca bushes, and many of the smaller ones may be found feeding upon the honey dew covering the foliage of small eucalypts that are infested with scale insects. Thynnus variabilis, our commonest species, is a very handsome wasp measuring over ¾ of an inch in length, and nearly 1¾ across the outspread wings; the general colour is brown; the front of the head, hind margin of thorax, and broad bands or double dots across the abdominal segments bright yellow; the semiopaque wings reddish brown. The female, very broad in proportion, is shorter than the male; she is reddish brown; the abdominal segments are rugose and blotched with yellow, forming transverse bars of rounded dots on the hind portion. The antennae are short and curled; the head broad, with a stout thorax; and she has short hairy legs. Thynnus leachellus, slightly smaller, is found in the vicinity of Sydney. The abdomen is broader and shorter in proportion; the general tint is black, richly marked on the head and thorax with bright yellow, and each of the abdominal segments carries a narrow transverse band of the same colour, broken by a dorsal stripe of black. The female is much smaller, short and thickset; is of a general reddish brown colour; the abdomen is marked with yellow blotches and bands, only the last one divided as in the male. Thynnus flavilabris, somewhat larger, is quite black, with only the face marked with deep yellow; the wings are dark, smoke-coloured; and the hind margin of the thorax is thickly covered with white hairs.
Thynnus brenchleyi is a type of the North Australian forms; it is nearly as large as T. variabilis, but has the whole upper surface smooth and shining, the hind margin of the thorax and the base of the abdomen truncate and fitting close against each other. The head and prothorax are bright yellow, the rest black. This handsome insect was described by Smith in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Curaçoa, and it was said to come from the northern coast of Western Australia; my specimens were taken near Charters Towers, North Queensland. A female, sent with this species as its mate, is black, marked on the head, sides of thorax, and abdomen with yellow, and is furnished with a curious fringe of pale buff hairs on the hind margin of the thorax, and along the front of the first abdominal segment.
In the Genus Rhagigaster the males are more slender in form; the abdomen, elongated and deeply constricted or corrugated at the junction of the segments, is usually black, with more or less dark coloured wings: the females are very small in proportion.
Among the most remarkable is the “Blue Ant,” Diamma bicolor. In this case the female is most common; about Sydney I have caught scores of females, but so far have never taken a male. She measures 1 inch in length, and is of a rich metallic blue to purple colour, smooth and shining, the antennae and legs reddish brown. She is furnished with a fine pair of jaws and a powerful sting, more formidable than that of any ant, and when disturbed turns over on her back and shows fight with both jaws and sting. The male, much smaller in size, is black, with red legs and black tarsi; the wings are semitransparent with black nervures. The whole upper surface of head and thorax is rugose, and the insect very ant-like in general appearance.
Mr. Roland Turner is at present engaged in working up the Australian Thynnidae at the British Museum, having his own and my collection of specimens to identify; probably this combined collection is the largest in existence, and contains an immense number of sexed specimens collected in the field, as we have both spent a great deal of time over these typical Australian insects.
Family 16. Hairy Flower Wasps — Scoliidae
These insects are easily distinguished from the Thynnidae in being thickset hairy wasps; both sexes are furnished with wings in which the neuration is distinct at the base, but the nervures fade out before they reach the tips; the thorax is broad, rounded in front, with a very short pedicle attaching it to the stout abdomen. The legs are stout, compressed, very hairy, and spiny, with one stout spur on the tibiae of the middle pair of legs well adapted for burrowing. The males are easily distinguished from the females in being more slender in form, with longer straight antennae (in the latter sex short, thickened, and curling round the sides of the head); and the legs are slender, with fewer spines. Several species are plentiful about the Sydney gardens and bush, where they can be easily captured on the flowers. In observations made by earlier entomologists, their life history seems to have been confused with those of the long legged sand wasps, which burrow in the ground and form regular nests provisioned with other insects and spiders; but the Scoliidae form no true nest; the female burrows into the ground or under logs, where she finds the larvae or white grubs of the larger lamellicorn beetles, on which she deposits a single egg, first carefully stinging the beetle grub (according to Fabre, the French naturalist, who studied the habits of several European species). The young wasp hatching out attaches itself to the helpless grub in such a manner that it does not injure the vital organs, and by the time it has devoured its host it is ready to pupate, spinning a brown silken cocoon which fits into the cavity first occupied by the unfortunate beetle grub; when fully developed it digs its way up to the surface.
About 50 species have been described from Australia; Smith listed and described a number of new species (British Museum Catalogue Hymenoptera 1855): Saussure described several in the same year (Memoires de la Societe de Physique, &c., Geneve), and later on others in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France 1858. In 1864 he and Sichel monographed the family: Smith described 8 more four years after: and Kirby going through the British Museum Collections in 1889 revised the Genera and added another to our list.
Discolia soror is our commonest shining black species; the female measures over 1 inch in length, and is easily identified by its beautiful, iridescent, opaque, dark blue wings. It may be often seen in our gardens on the flowers or hovering in numbers over a dead stump, looking for beetle larvae in which to deposit its eggs. Scolia fulva is our largest species; the female measures up to 1½ inches in length, and is broad in proportion; it is black and reddish yellow, but so thickly clothed with coarse reddish hairs that it is more the latter tint; and the semiopaque wings are reddish brown. This species is figured and described by Gray in Griffith’s Animal Kingdom 1832.
Scolia radula is a smaller black species, under 1 inch in length; the head, apex of thorax, base of abdomen and most of the under-surface are clothed with grey hairs, but the hind margin of the head and dorsal surface of abdomen are clothed with reddish brown; the latter is orange yellow above, but marked with black at the base and tip.
Dielis 7-cincta, one of our commonest species, often clustering in numbers on flowering shrubs in the gardens, was described by Fabricius, and is the male of Dielis (Scolia) formosa which was not described till 1846 by Guérin. The male, ⅔ of an inch in length, is very slender in form, of a general black colour, clothed with fine grey hairs, and marked with light yellow on the head and thorax, with five broad bands of the same colour on the body. The female, under 1 inch in length, is black, with the abdomen marked on the upper surface with reddish yellow somewhat variable in its distribution, and clothed with reddish brown hairs, thickest on the head and thorax. This insect has been found in Queensland destroying the underground grub of the Sugar-cane Beetle (Lepidoderma albo-hirtum).
Family 17. Sand Wasps — Pompilidae
This group is well represented in Australia, and widely distributed over the country; about 60 species have been described: several collected by Sir Joseph Banks in 1775 were described by Fabricius; Smith, in the Catalogue previously noticed, in a series of papers between 1862–69 in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, other Journals, and a British Museum publication (New Species of Hymenoptera 1879) published after his death, has described most of our species; Saussure in the Hymenoptera of the Reise Novara; and later Kohl has enriched our list.
The typical genera Pompilus and Salius comprise a number of large yellow and black wasps with coloured wings tipped with black. They have long legs well adapted for running over the ground, and may be seen any warm sunny morning hunting about for spiders, with their antennae and wings constantly on the move as they rush about. They will attack the largest spider whether on the ground or hidden in a tree trunk; one large black undetermined species even ventures down the nests of the Trap-door Spiders and drags them forth. Sometimes one of the larger ground spiders shows fight, and it becomes a duel to the death, the wasp now and then being captured by its intended victim. They often place the spider in any suitable cavity with their eggs, but others form extensive burrows in the soil. Salius (Priocnemus) bicolor is one of our largest yellow and black species, often measuring 2 inches across the wings, but variable both in colouration and size. She forms a burrow as large as a mouse hole, several feet in length, with quite a large mound of excavated soil outside the entrance; when emerging from the chamber she looks a most formidable creature, but unless captured never attempts to attack anyone. She sometimes stores her nest with cicadas many times larger than herself, which she rides down to their tomb before they are quite dead. The young larva is usually attached to the cicada’s breast when hatched out; but I have never been able to keep any alive after being dug out of the nest. This wasp has a curious habit of flying round and dragging a cicada off a branch when it is sucking up the sap; taking its place, she calmly stands over the spot and drinks up the sap that exudes from the puncture the dispossessed cicada had made in the bark. The members of the Genus Pepsis are large black wasps with a beautiful metallic lustre on the wings; they are chiefly confined to the tropics, but Saussure has described one species, P. australis, from this country.
Family 18. Smaller Sand Wasps — Sphegidae
Westwood placed these wasps and the Pompilidae in a single family, but Kohl, while separating the latter, has grouped a number that were once ranked as families, under the Sphegidae, calling them simply sub-families, thus making this a much more extensive division, the Sphegidae proper forming only a part of the whole.
Dalla Torre in his Catalogue treats them as a sub-division of the Crabronidae; but Sharp takes Kohl’s classification, which I follow.
The Sphegides are easily distinguished by the peculiar structure of the abdomen; the basal portion is produced into a slender rod-like stalk or pedicle, with the apical part forming a rounded or oval tip; they are very active creatures with the habits of the larger sand wasps.
The world-wide Genus Ammophila is represented in Australia by four described species; they make their nests in sandy ground, digging out a straight burrow with an enlarged chamber at the end, which they store with different kinds of caterpillars they capture on the plants while hunting; these they sting but do not kill, but though paralysed and incapable of motion, remain alive long enough to furnish the baby wasps with a supply of fresh food.
Ammophila suspiciosa is a slender black insect under 1 inch in length; the thickened tip of the abdomen is dull red. This is our common species found all over the western country. A. instabilis is a larger black species with semiopaque wings and reddish legs; the tubular portion of the body and base of the thickened part are reddish brown: this one is a northern form found in Queensland.
Pelopaeus laetus is a very handsome black and yellow wasp with a somewhat similar shaped body tipped with black; it is very variable in size, the largest measuring about 1 inch in length. It has a wide range over Australia, and differs from the former insects in being a regular “mud dauber,” forming a regular clay nest consisting of a number of different cells, each of which is filled with paralysed spiders. It is a very friendly insect, often flying into the room on a summer day; and will build its nest on the edge of a roof or wall.
The typical Genus Sphex contains a number of fine black wasps more or less clothed with silver or golden pubescence on the head and thorax, with the slender pedicle at the base of the thorax very well defined, and the hind portion of the abdomen almost round or oval. They form underground burrows branching out into a chamber at the end, in which they store all kinds of different insects, each species seeming to have a preference for its particular choice. Sphex vestita, one of our largest species, has the face thickly clothed with silvery pubescence; it is often common in sandy patches in gardens, where it hunts for small orthopterous insects, and is particularly fond of a species of small brown cricket which lives in the long grass. S. opulenta is a smaller species about ¾ of an inch in length, with the face and back of the thorax bright silver, and the dorsal surface of the latter coppery. About 30 species are described from Australia, some of which have a very wide range over the interior.
The Larrides are medium sized black wasps with the abdomen not stalked, but coming to a point at the junction with the thorax, and often ornamented with golden or silvery pubescence forming bands on the body.
Shuckard described a number of our species belonging to the Genus Pison (Trans. Ent. Society 1837–40), where he gives some account of the group. Smith in the same Transactions, 1869, catalogued those previously described, and added a number of new species; and also added the Genus Parapison, containing species from India, Ceylon and Australia. The European Tachytes, which Westwood says are captured in sand banks, are represented here by three species, all shining black insects about ½ an inch in length. Saussure (1855), and Kohl later have described others.
Pison spinolae and P. decipiens are both black wasps with silvery bands upon the sides of the abdomen; the latter are the smaller. They are both common about Sydney, and have a very wide range over the country; they are very fearless insects, flying into the house, and wherever they come upon a convenient hole in the rung of a chair, or even a key hole, will set to work and line it with clay, forming an irregular chamber, which they store with small spiders, deposit the egg, and after closing it up fly away quite satisfied. Sometimes they form a row of round clay cells on a coat or other garment hanging on a wall.
The Nyssonides comprise a smaller group of closely allied forms, differing chiefly in the venation of the wings. Smith has described most of our species. The members of the Genus Gorytes are represented by five described species; all small, active, bee-like insects with coppery fasciae upon the abdomen; several of these are known in the bush as “policemen flies” from their habit of coming round and catching flies upon one’s clothes and even snapping one off the back of one’s hand; these flies are killed with their stout jaws and deposited in their nests constructed in the ground.
The curious, large, reddish brown wasp, Stizus pectoralis, from Queensland, at first sight might be taken for a Thynnus, but the distinct form of the body, and the antennae thickened toward the tips, show that it could not belong to the flower wasps. It is now placed in the allied Genus Sphecius.
The Philanthides are easily distinguished from the other groups by the curious rugose or punctured integument which makes them look as though coated with armour plate, and the curious constrictions or rings between the abdominal segments, becoming smallest toward the tip. They are generally black or reddish brown, marked with pale yellow spots and bands. With the exception of one species of the Genus Philanthus all ours have been placed in the world-wide Genus Cerceris. I have generally captured them about flowers, or flying round bushes infested with scale insects that were throwing off honey dew, which sweet secretion has a great attraction for small hymenoptera of many different families. Eight species are described by Smith and Saussure; there are probably many new species to be recorded. Nothing is known about their habits in this country, but the European species form nests in the ground, which they provision with small beetles; and each species is said to confine its attention to a different group of beetles; one uses only small weevils; another carries off chrysomalids, and so on with each species.
The Crabronides are another small group, and under the present classification all our species have been placed by Smith in the world-wide Genus Crabro. They are medium sized black wasps with broad stout heads and unstalked bodies, generally banded with orange, red, or yellow; they form burrows in the stems of plants, which they store with captured flies. Five species have been described from Australia and Tasmania.
The Bembecides are very handsome, smooth, shining wasps of fair size, with broad bodies, rounded and broadly pointed at the extremity. They are generally met with along sandy pathways and roads, flitting along in front of one, settling on the ground and rising again, so that they are easily captured with a net. They make shallow burrows on the roadside in which they place flies, which they capture with their powerful jaws.
Nearly all our species have been described by Smith in the British Museum Catalogue Hymenoptera 1856, and the Annals and Magazine of Natural History 1873. Under 20 species are recorded from Australia. Bembex tridentifera was described by Smith from Moreton Bay, Queensland, but it has a wide range southwards to Victoria. It measures just under ¾ of an inch in length; is of a general black colour; the face yellow with a black trident-like mark above and two black spots below the antennae; the legs yellow lightly marked with black; the upper surface of the thorax spotted and barred with yellow, and the abdomen beautifully banded with irregular white bands on the 2nd to 4th segments, with the first and last only marked on the sides. B. vespiformis ranges from West Australia to S. Australia, is somewhat smaller than the last, and viewed from above is black, with very faint markings on the thorax, and a broad white band on either side of the first segment of the abdomen almost meeting on the back.
Diploptera
The true wasps have the antennae generally elbowed and thickened toward the tips, and the eyes notched. They have the wings folded like a fan in repose, but can fly well, and have legs and feet adapted for walking. Some species are solitary in their habits, and consist of males and females only; others live in large communities, and, like the ants, comprise males, females, and workers, the latter aborted females.
Family 19. Solitary Wasps — Eumenidae
This group is well represented in Australia; they are well known to residents in the country from their habit of constructing clay nests under the shelter of the verandah or the eaves of the houses. They usually appear in pairs, and rapidly build up the structure, flying backward and forward with their earthen loads; from this habit they get the name of “Mud Daubers” in America, and “Mason Wasps” in this country. A number of our species are described and figured in Saussure’s “Monograph des Guepes Solitaires” published in 1851.
The Genus Eumenes contains a number of very handsome insects that are easily recognised from the basal portion of the abdomen forming a more or less slender stalk, and the apical portion rounded at the junction and tapering to a sharp point at the tip. They build clay nests containing a number of cells, and store them with caterpillars, which they do not appear to be able to paralyse in the same manner as the large sand wasps, for they are capable of movement after they are enclosed in the cell. By some wonderful instinct, the female wasp does not deposit her egg haphazard among the wriggling grubs that would easily damage it, but suspends it by a fine stalk to the roof of the cell in such a manner, that when the little wasp larva hatches out, it can safely reach down and feed upon the nearest caterpillar, until it has finished the last bit, when it spins a thin parchment cocoon and pupates in the cavity which before was its larder.
Eumenes bicincta has a wide range over Australia; it measures about 1 inch in length; the stalk is not quite so long as the base of the abdomen, and is of a uniform deep orange yellow colour, with the top of the head, centre of thorax, and broad band in the middle of the abdomen black. Eumenes latreillei, a larger species, has the stalk of the abdomen shorter and thickened, with the basal half of the body from the stalk black. Eumenes servillei, the smallest of the three, is more slender in shape, has more black upon the thorax, and the stalked portion of the body is variegated with black. Eumenes arcuatus is a more northern species common in Queensland; it measures over 1 inch in length, and is the only one with blackish wings; it has a very long slender stalked abdomen. It is black, mottled on the head and thorax with yellow; and the abdominal segments are barred on either side with yellow, which appear to form regular slender bands across, but do not actually meet in the centre.
Two of our handsomest mason wasps belonging to the Genus Abispa measure 1 inch in length, but are so stout in form that they appear much larger; they are black and deep orange yellow, with dull yellow wings tipped with black, and the stout broad thorax fits close against the base of the abdomen. Abispa splendida has the front half of the first abdominal segment black, with the hind portion yellow, while in Abispa ephippium the whole of the first abdominal segment is yellow. They both build very large, solid, clay nests generally containing two rows of cells, about 6 in number, above each other, with thick partitions between them; the outer surface is rounded on the sides; each cell is stored with caterpillars upon which the larva feeds, and finally pupates in a reddish brown parchment-like cocoon.
The Genus Rhynchium comprises about six described species, handsome insects not unlike the former in general form, but with the abdomen more tapering. Rhynchium mirabile measures ¾ of an inch in length; it is of a general black colour, the head marked with, and collar of thorax, yellow; and the hind margin of the abdominal segments is ringed with slender bands of orange yellow. Rhynchium superbum is a smaller insect of similar form and colour, with the basal half of the abdomen black and the hind portion rich yellow. Both these species come from Queensland.
The Genus Odynerus contains a great number of small thickset wasps, that make clay nests of various shapes, sometimes very delicate in structure, forming a finger-shaped row of clay cells or rounded cup-shaped chambers; while some species make use of a hole in the wood or wall and simply coat it over with clay. Australia is rich in species, some of which have a very wide range. Odynerus bicolor, one of our commonest species, is black, with the collar of the thorax, legs, and all the abdomen except the basal segment, dull reddish yellow. Odynerus nigro-cinctus is of a general dark orange yellow colour, with the head and centre of abdomen black. The closely allied species forming the Genus Alastor differ slightly in the venation of the wings, but their habits are identical; about 30 species have been described from Australia, chiefly by Saussure, some of which are figured in colours in his Monograph. These wasps may be captured round water-holes in the summer months, and may sometimes be found resting upon grass stalks in the early morning.
Family 20. Social or Paper-nest Wasps — Vespidae
These typical wasps are found all over the world, and next to the bees have probably received more attention from the casual observer than most of the other groups. Each community consists of males, females, and workers, and though the structure of their nests differs considerably in the various groups, the social economy is the same. The female first starting the nest constructs a stout stalk at the apex attached to a twig or roof, and constructs a six-sided cell from which the whole mushroom-shaped nest is built. In each little cell she deposits an egg from which the legless white grub emerges, attaches itself to the roof of the cell and hangs head downward, being fed by the mother wasp until full grown with food chiefly composed of masticated spiders, when it pupates under a silken cover spun over the apex of the cell. As soon as it emerges it sets to work to help on the nest, so that the community rapidly increases in numbers. The nest of Polistes tasmaniensis sometimes measures six inches in diameter. Some confusion as to the identity of this species and P. variabilis seems to exist, but from Saussure’s description, our common species appears to be P. tasmaniensis.
Family Vespidae.
1 & 5. Nests of Polistes tasmaniensis.
2. Icaria gregaria (Sauss.).
3. Slender nest typical of Genus Icaria.
4. Polistes tasmaniensis (Sauss.).
(Original photo. Burton.)]
The widespread Genus Vespa, though it is recorded from as far down as Java, is unknown in Australia. We have however allied species belonging to the genera Icaria and Polistes. Those of the genus Icaria are the smaller wasps, the largest well under ½ an inch in length; most of them are reddish brown, or mottled with black and yellow; the abdomen is contracted into a stalk at the base, then becomes rounded, with the apical segments small and telescopic, so that when retracted it looks as if it were damaged. They all form similar nests commencing with the usual stalk, but, unlike the larger Polistes, the cells follow on in rows, forming finger-like nests. Icaria gregaria, our commonest species, forms these slender nests up to six inches in length. It is a dull reddish brown wasp mottled with black on the thorax and legs, with the apex of the abdomen lightest in colour.
Some of the members of the Genus Polistes grow to a considerable size, and armed with a powerful sting are very formidable insects; several of the largest form small stalked nests on the under-side of fallen logs; when hunting for insects and turning over dead wood one is liable to disturb a family party and find it wise to beat a hasty retreat. They differ from the previous group in having no stalk to the abdomen, which is very slender at the base, rounded to the middle and tapers to a pointed apex. Polistes tasmaniensis, our most sociable species, is very fond of building her large nest (previously noticed) under one’s verandah, or the porch over the door, and is quite ready to attack any one when disturbed. It is one of the smallest species, measuring under ¾ of an inch in length; is of a general dark brown colour marked with reddish brown; the abdomen is irregularly banded, with the first basal band finest. Polistes tepidus, one of our largest wasps, is almost black, with face, tips of legs, and thorax marked with dark orange yellow, and the abdomen banded with rusty red. Polistes humilis is of an almost uniform yellowish brown tint, with the face marked with black. In the Queensland Museum there are some very large paper-nests of some undetermined wasps that have a regular comb-like structure containing thousands of cells, and which are several feet in length.
Family 21. Shining Wasps — Masaridae
These curious wasps stand quite alone as the last group of the true Vespidae, and are a comparatively small family, comprising several distinctive genera containing altogether sixty species found in the Mediterranean region, South and North America, and Australia.
They are wasp-like in waist, with the antennae thickened toward the tips or clubbed; the wings contain two sub-marginal cells; and the feet are furnished with curious toothed or rather hooked claws. The European species are known to build nests in the ground, forming a tunnel ending in a clay cell in which the larvae live and are fed by the mother in the same manner as the true wasps forming the papery nests; others construct clay chambers attached to twigs.
Shuckard when he formed the typical Australian Genus Paragia named it “in allusion to its deceptive habit, which is precisely that of a Vespa.” Saussure wrote a monograph on the Masaridae forming the third part of the Vespidae published in 1856; Smith has also contributed to our knowledge of Australian species in the British Museum Catalogue 1857, and subsequently in several papers in the Entomological Society of London between 1864–1869.
Seventeen species have been described in the Genus Paragia, but nothing has been recorded about their habits or life history: several are described from Tasmania and New South Wales, but all the specimens in my collection come from the northern part of Australia.
Paragia decipiens was described and figured by Shuckard in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, 1837; it measures under ¾ of an inch in length, and is of a general black colour, with the front and sides of the thorax spotted with yellow, and the whole of the smooth rounded abdomen of the same bright colour except the base, which is black; the wings are smoky brown, with the nervures black. Paragia bicolor is a larger insect measuring nearly 1 inch in length; the head and thorax are black, and the abdomen bright metallic blue; the under surface and sides of the first three segments, and the base of the thorax, are marked with bright yellow.
Family 22. Bees — Anthophila or Apidae
The Australian region is rich in bees peculiar to the country; and while we have representatives of many of the foreign groups, yet several well-known genera, such as Apis, Bombus, Eucera, Colletes and Osmia, though ranging over the greater part of the world, are unknown in Australia.
The classification of the bees is still somewhat unsatisfactory. Latreille termed them Mellifera, honey gatherers, or Anthophila, lovers of flowers: Westwood and others, while keeping this as a group name, subdivided them into two large families, Andrenidae, short-tongued bees, and Apidae, long-tongued bees, dividing the last family into five smaller groups based upon their different structure and habits. The European bees have been since placed under six headings; while in Dalla Torre’s Catalogue dealing with the bees of the whole world, there are no less than fourteen sub-families. Most of our species have been described by Smith, in the British Museum Catalogue, Hymenoptera 1853; others in the Transactions of the Entomological Society 1862–68, and New Species, British Museum 1879. Cockerell (Ann. & Mag. Nat. History 1905) described a number of new species of our bees examined by him in the British Museum Collections, and added some interesting information on species already described; as many of these specimens were collected by Turner, Walker, and myself and sent to the British Museum, the Australian localities are given.
None of the short-tongued bees store up honey, but form cells or burrows in the ground, walls, cavities in rocks, or the stems of plants, in which they form a row of cells or little chambers each containing an egg and sufficient bee bread for the development of the larva. Some of these bees are parasitic, and live at the expense of the industrious species, crawling into the open nests and laying their eggs upon the food supply of the rightful occupant; these are popularly known as “cuckoo bees.”
The members of the Genus Prosopis are handsome, shining black or steel blue bees, marked with bright yellow upon the face and thorax. With the additions that Cockerell has made to the list, nearly fifty species are described from Australia, and a number are common in the vicinity of Sydney. Prosopis vidua, our largest species, but considerably smaller than the honey bee, is found upon the crimson flowers of the bottlebrush (Callistemon). It has the head and thorax black, with a yellow spot on the face and the base of each fore wing; the abdomen is bright metallic blue. A smaller undetermined species may be often noticed hovering round and entering holes in the soft sandstone rocks where it appears to nest. Prosopis metallica, a shining black species, smaller than P. vidua, with face and shoulders broadly marked with yellow, was bred out of a row of half a dozen brown papery cocoons placed in an empty burrow formed in the branch of a wattle tree by the larva of some longicorn beetle.
Lamprocolletes plumosus and several other species of the genus frequent the flowers of the Leptospermum. It is a handsome dark brown bee, under ½ an inch in length. The abdomen has a metallic sheen, and the head and thorax are clothed with fine down.
Hylaeoides concinnus is a very remarkable looking black bee, with clouded smoky wings, marked with bright red on the face, and with bands of the same colour on the base and tip of the abdomen. I have usually captured this bee upon bushes; it bears such a decided superficial resemblance to a small clay nesting (Odynerus) wasp, that this may be a case of protective mimicry. The Genus Paracolletes has been added to by Cockerell, who describes twelve new species in his recent papers. Paracolletes crassipes was described by Smith from W. Australia, but it is common on low scrub in the early part of the year on the Blue Mountains N.S.W. It is a handsome black bee about ½ an inch in length, with the head and thorax thickly clothed with pale buff hairs, and the abdominal segments banded on the upper surface with dull brown.
Gastropsis (Oestropsis) pubescens is nearly as large as a honey bee, with curious thickened antennae, slender at the basal joint. It is somewhat flattened on the upper surface and clothed all over with a dense coat of pale buff coloured hairs, only showing indistinct brown bars on the abdomen. I know nothing about the habits of this curious bee; it has been described from Western and South Australia.
The Genus Halictus is represented by about thirty described species; nothing has been recorded about the habits of our species, but most of the European form galleries in the ground connected with a large excavation or chamber in which the larvae are placed in cells. Halictus floralis is a small bee with a reddish brown body; the front of the head, antennae, legs, front and middle of thorax are light yellow. H. bicingulatus is black with the legs reddish brown, and the segmental divisions of the abdomen light coloured. They are found on grass and field flowers. Nomia australica, under ½ an inch in length, is common on the flowers of the Leptospermum; it is a dull, metallic blue bee with antennae, labrum, legs, and extreme tip of abdomen reddish brown. The latter has a greenish sheen, and is somewhat heart shaped, terminating in a fine point. Cockerell has added six new species to our list, most of which are described from Queensland.
Exoneura froggatti is a little bee not much over ¼ of an inch in length, black with smoky rings, reddish legs and a curiously sack-shaped reddish brown abdomen, broadest near the apex, but contracted to a point at the tip. I have frequently cut them out of small burrows in the dead stems of wattle trees. Exoneura bicolor is a slightly larger species, with a darker, broader abdomen, and it comes from Queensland. Cockerell has added three more new species, all from the neighbourhood of Sydney. The great Carpenter Bees of the Genus Xylocopa are represented by four species, which are more common in Queensland and the northern parts of Australia; but one species at least, Xylocopa aestuans, ranges southwards. It is of the typical broad form with dark coloured wings; the upper surface of the thorax is clothed with yellow, other portions with black hairs. Xylocopa bryorum is a larger species measuring about 1 inch in length, with a wing expanse of nearly two; the whole of the upper surface is thickly clothed with golden yellow hairs, the brown beneath giving it a greenish tint. The wings are light brown with black nervures, and the hairs on the legs and under-surface are dark brown to black.
The closely allied Carpenter Bees of the Genus Lestis are peculiar to Australia. The male of Lestis bombylans measures over ½ an inch in length, and is of a rich metallic green, with the front of the face striped with white; the thorax and base of abdomen are clothed with golden hairs, those on the front of the thorax forming a double bar; the hairs on the front pair of legs yellow, those on the hind pair black; the wings are brown with faint iridescence. The female has the face silvery, but no yellow down upon the thorax; the abdomen is deep purple; and the wings almost opaque, varying from dark brown to rich metallic violet colour in different lights. The second species, Lestis aerata, is slightly larger, with the stripe on the face of the male yellow, and all the legs fringed with yellow pubescence, while the female is of a uniform brassy green, with wings light coloured, more like those of the males, and only showing a slight iridescence. Both species have a wide range; those about Sydney form their nests in the dead flower stalks of the grass trees (Xanthorrhoea). It begins by boring a circular hole 3½ lines in diameter towards the centre, then turns downward, excavating all the pith to a depth of about 4 inches, and then works out about the same distance above the opening, so that the full length of the chamber is 8 inches, with an average of ½ an inch in diameter. This is divided off into a row of cells, each about ½ an inch in length, with a ball of bee bread and an egg deposited in the far end; each cell is separated by a stout wad of triturated pith. I have never found the centre of the chamber in front of the opening closed up with cells, a space always being left unoccupied on both sides. The larvae are of the usual cylindrical form, attenuated at the extremities, and of a dull white colour, about ½ an inch in length, and can be found in all stages of development in November. The pretty banded bees, formerly known under the name of Anthophora, but now placed in the Genus Podalirius, are world wide in their range. All our species have the head and thorax clothed with a dense coat of buff or pale yellow hairs, and the body banded with black and blue of various tints. Podalirius emendatus, our largest species, is found on the northern rivers of N.S. Wales and is common in Queensland; it has the head and thorax covered with rusty red pubescence, and the low abdominal bands broad. P. cingulatus is slightly smaller, with the pubescence pale buff, the abdominal bands much the same; P. pulcher, much smaller, with the pubescence darker, is our commonest species about Sydney. P. aeruginosus has the whole of the abdomen as well as the head and thorax thickly clothed with a dull greenish yellow pubescence. My specimens of this species come from Mackay, Queensland. Five new species are added to this genus by Cockerell.
The Genus Crocisa contains a few very handsome moderate sized bees of a uniform black colour with smoky rings, and brightly marked bodies. Crocisa albo-maculata, our largest species, has the face, upper and under surface, and legs thickly marked and spotted with white pubescence. It is a somewhat rare insect about Sydney. C. lamprosoma is a smaller bee with the marks and spots pale blue, those upon the abdomen forming a more regular pattern of four well defined rows. In C. nitidula the pubescence forms rich metallic blue spots and blotches, most brilliant on the upper surface of the abdomen, where they run right round the basal segment and form a regular row of short bands on either side but not meeting on the dorsal surface. It is found in New South Wales and Queensland.
Family Apidae.
1. Xylocopa aestuans (Linn.). ♂.
1. Xylocopa aestuans (Linn.). ♀.
2. Lestis aeratus (Smith). ♀.
2. Lestis aeratus (Smith). ♂.
5. Crocisa nitidula (Fabr.).
6. Crocisa lamprosoma (Boisd.).
7. Sarapoda bombiformis (Smith).
8. Megachile pictiventris (Smith).
9. Megachile blackburni (Froggatt).
Family Andrenidae.
3. Hyleoides concinna (Fabr.). ♀.
10. Paracolletes crassipes (Smith).
Family Eumenidae.
4. Abispa splendida (Guérin).
11. Odynerus nigro-cinctus (Saussure).
12. Rhynchium mirabile (Saussure).
14. Eumenes arcuatus (Fabr.).
Family Sphegidae.
13. Ammophila impatiens (Smith).
Family Philanthidae.
15. Cerceris sp.
Family Vespidae.
16. Polistes tepidus (Fabr.).
(Original photo. Burton.)
The great Genus Megachile contains the leaf-cutting bees, so called from the curious habit they have of cutting circular pieces out of the leaves of growing plants with which they line their nests; these are sometimes built in excavations in old walls, or dead wood, or simply constructed like a cigar under stones. About 30 species have been described from Australia; the two largest are Megachile monstrosa, figured in Brenchley’s “Cruise of the Curaçoa,” published in 1873; and M. blackburni, described by me from specimens obtained from Central Australia by the Elder Exploring Expedition. Megachile mystacea, a medium sized species found in Queensland and Northern Australia, is also recorded from India; it is black, with the head and face clothed with silvery hairs, and the whole of the abdomen covered with rich reddish brown pubescence; while M. pictiventris has the hind margin of the thorax clothed with silvery hairs, the apical half of the under-surface with reddish brown hairs which extend to form a fringe round the extremity. M. chrysopyga is a native of Tasmania and Victoria. I found a nest of this species under a stone in the latter State, which could be lifted up bodily without breaking. It was about the shape and length of an ordinary cigar, and consisted of about nine cells containing the larvae. These cells, like a series of shallow thimbles, were enfolded in the outer shell of looser leaf.
The Genus Coelioxys comprises a number of curious bees that in general appearance are so very like the “leaf cutters,” that a French naturalist having bred one out of a Megachile’s nest described it as the male form of the species. They are now known to be parasitic in the nests of these bees in Europe, so that the similarity in form may be of great protective value to them. They differ chiefly in the form of the abdomen, which in the males is produced into forked spines at the extremity, and in the females into a sharp point.
I have two undetermined species in my collection from Queensland obtained some years ago, but until last year the presence of this group had not been recorded from Australia. Cockerell recorded (1905) two species from this country; Coelioxys albolineata, measuring about ⅓ of an inch in length, comes from Queensland, and is of the usually grey and brown tints.
The last group we have to deal with are the Australian stingless honey bees, belonging to the Genus Trigona, which range all over Australia. They collect quantities of dark coloured somewhat acid flavoured honey, which they store up in little jug-shaped cells of dark brown wax, forming an irregular comb attached to the walls of the cavity in which they have constructed their hive by a network of irregular rods of wax. They generally choose a cavity in the heart of a large gum-tree with a small opening from the outside, and before commencing to make their comb they plaster up all the cracks and inequalities of the chamber with the sticky sap or gum of the Turpentine Tree (Syncarpia). This chamber is usually about the size of a man’s head, and the comb as a rule contains not more than a pint or two of honey. This is the typical nest found in N.S. Wales, but in the tropical scrubs of North Queensland many of them form a small funnel or spout projecting round the opening, composed of a waxy-substance an inch or more in length. As the green tree ants often capture these bees and are always swarming over the tree trunks, this is probably a necessary protection. The honey gatherers of Trigona carbonaria, our common species, are black, thickset little bees measuring about ⅙ of an inch in length. They are fearless little creatures when at work, and will allow themselves to be picked off the flowers without any attempt to fly. Several species have been recently added to our fauna, and though Dalla-Torre in his Catalogue places the members of the genus Trigona in the Melipona, which until then had only contained the allied stingless bees of South America and the tropics, Cockerell retains them in the old genus, describing a new species from Port Essington, and recording a species known in Ceylon (Trigona canifrons) also from the north coast of Australia.